Michigan State men’s basketball will host Duke at the Breslin Center in East Lansing on Dec. 6, 2025 as part of the Spartans' 2025-2026 non-conference schedule.
This matchup was first reported by Jon Rothstein in May. He had also previously reported back in January that the Spartans and Blue Devils had been in “advanced discussions” about making the all-blue blood battle happen again, but now it certainly appears that an agreement has been made.
The game is meant to serve as the back-end of an unofficial home-and-home series, as MSU traveled to Durham, North Carolina and Cameron Indoor back in December 2020, playing in front of no fans due to the COVID-19 pandemic, in what was that year’s Champions Classic. The Spartans won that game, 75-69.
This will be the 20th all-time meeting between Michigan State and Duke, but just the fourth time it will not be Tom Izzo versus Mike Krzyzewski. All but one meeting between the two storied programs have come since 1994.
It will be the second time Izzo will face off against Coach K’s successor, Jon Scheyer. Those two met for the first time during the November 2023 Champions Classic, where the ninth-ranked Blue Devils defeated 18th-ranked MSU, 74-65.
Additionally, Duke has only traveled to East Lansing and the Breslin Center twice. MSU will need to search for its first home win against the Blue Devils, though. Duke beat the Spartans 72-50 back in December 2003 and 87-79 back in December 2019.
Overall, Duke leads the all-time series, 15-4, and is slated to face the Spartans again on a neutral court for the Champions Classic during the early parts of the 2026-2027 season. For this upcoming 2025-2026 season, MSU will face Kentucky in that event on Nov. 18 in Madison Square Garden.
The Spartans are also slated to face Duke’s archrival, North Carolina, as well. That is for the 2025 Fort Myers Tip-Off in Florida. That event takes place the week of Thanksgiving and also features a contest against East Carolina on Nov. 25.
Additionally, the home and away locations of the Spartans’ Big Ten opponents were also revealed in April. Dates and times for that are also still TBA.
Last year, Michigan State's full schedule was not announced until September.
Michigan State is coming off of a 30-7 overall campaign during the 2024-2025 season, in which the Spartans captured a Big Ten regular-season title and made a run to the Elite Eight in the 2025 NCAA Tournament. Duke went 35-4 and made the Final Four, taking the ACC's regular season and conference tournament crowns in the process.
Note: The contents of this article were largely written on May 2, when the game was initially reported to be happening.
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